I didn't ignore it, I just disagree with it and selected 2 examples which were long-said to never look better than we thought they would and yet they did (and there most likely are others like this) in order to illustrate why I disagree.

So again : this murky photography shouldn't prevent a proper restoration to offer better grain retention than the current master and an overall uptick in fine details, just as it didn't for other titles in the past.

Pulse currently looks coarse (see for instance hair, which is a usual give-away fine element, or fabric details), which is a different matter that a new restoration would get rid of. It most likely will never look "clear" as in "crystal clear", but it should have a finer definition than currently.

On a similar matter, that's why I don't find the current Hills Have Eyes restoration to be satisfying. Many think it's because the movie had a cheap budget. I just think the elements used for this restoration are rubbish and the movie actually shouldn't look like this. See again : TCM (and on a lesser term, I think it was also the case for Eaten Alive).

Yet again, you're ignoring the specific points that I'm making with regard to this particular film in favour of coming up with other examples of films that are visually and tonally so different as to be completely irrelevant.

The last time somebody told me "this movie can't be compared with that one", it was Svet telling me one couldn't compare Shoah and Following on how 16mm grain registered at 4K when I told him "Shoah is over compressed, look on Following how grain should be looking". Yet, Shoah was indeed over-compressed while Following wasn't and grain registration could actually be compared despite the movies being very different (and later experiences confirmed this possibility). So forgive me for tending to over-look this argument.

Then, again, I just disagree on your take (both on how the movie could look and the relevance of my exemples). I guess there's no point going on longer, so I'll just agree to disagree and move on.

And I'd certainly wouldn't dare going Restoration 101 on you, so my bad if it read like this.

The last time somebody told me "this movie can't be compared with that one", it was Svet telling me one couldn't compare Shoah and Following on how 16mm grain registered at 4K when I told him "Shoah is over compressed, look on Following how grain should be looking". Yet, Shoah was indeed over-compressed while Following wasn't and grain registration could actually be compared despite the movies being very different. So forgive me for tending to over-look this argument.

But those comparisons were relevant because you're talking about the encoding treatment of films shot, scanned and encoded in a very similar way. By contrast, the examples that you're drawing on here seem to me to be so random that... well, yes, they are coming across as Film Restoration 101, although I obviously assumed that that wasn't the intention.

Have you actually seen Pulse? Because if you haven't, I can see why you might not be grasping my point about this specific film's unusual visual texture. Obviously, we'd all love to live in a world in which everything gets a 4K restoration and a perfect encode, but I'm arguing that Pulse would benefit from this less than a great many other films because the murk seems to be such an integral part of the overall concept. In this respect it's fascinating comparing the DVDs, which really were murky to the point of being borderline unwatchable, with the BD, where the overall look seems far more carefully calibrated.

I'd certainly agree that any use of the words 'murky and fuzzy' in my post were not meant to be a negative! Especially because I don't really have an eye for such specific nuances even if I wanted to! (Though I was thinking about the final scene of Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway and Lynch in general earlier on, because they all use shadowplay to some extent. In some ways Lynch's films must be more difficult to transfer because in addition to wanting a certain murkiness Lynch seems to simultaneously like to emphasise the atmosphere of an environment with clouds of smoke or particles floating through the air. Something like the final scene of Mulholland Drive with its roiling clouds of smoke obscuring the darkened bedroom sounds like it might present a compression nightmare!)

Pulse is a film all about inky black stains and shadowy rooms that may or may not have something lurking in them. In some ways that celebrated scene of the woman simply walking from one end of a room to the couch at the other end plays much better on the Blu-ray now, as it feels easier to just be able to make the figure out at the beginning of the shot before she begins to move, which I remember having trouble seeing on the mid-2000s US Magnolia DVD. Whether that removes some of the spookiness or clarifies it is up to the individual viewer I guess!

Have you actually seen Pulse? Because if you haven't, I can see why you might not be grasping my point about this specific film's unusual visual texture.

I admit I only watched the first 15 minutes before having to turn it off, and haven't revisited it yet.This being written, I don't believe a new restoration would be light-years ahead, just that it would at least alleviate the coarseness currently visible.

As for the rest, there just have been many movies where people used to say "Oh, it has always looked soft / cheap / on a budget / dark / fuzzy..." only to be proven wrong later through a newer restoration. That's why I’m cautious about this argument (maybe overly so).Now, I might be wrong about Pulse and it might be more part of its look than I think it is (in this case, sorry for going on and on about it).

colinr0380 wrote:

I'd certainly agree that any use of the words 'murky and fuzzy' in my post were not meant to be a negative!

There was a coarseness in the part I saw that definitely reminded me of other pre-existing masters, hence my original feeling it seemed to come from the age of master itself rather than the photography.That's the difference I wanted to make. I understand some definitely comes from the photography, but I don’t think the current master is as faithful as it should be.

I've been really enjoying the interviews on the disc, especially Kurosawa's piece which even includes him making a tribute to Tobe Hooper! Plus it was a very nice surprise when talking about his earlier career to have an uncredited Shô Aikawa (who has a small role in the 'explanatory' flashback of Pulse) turn up to comment on his roles in Kurosawa's films! I wonder if Arrow took the opportunity to interview him whilst talking to him about his roles in Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive trilogy?

(This also makes me hope that Arrow might one day get into releasing some of Kurosawa's earliest films, such as Licence To Live or particularly Kandogawa Pervert Wars after fei hong's earlier comment on it! And I'd be really interested to see Sweet Home at some point, particularly because its location apparently inspired the mansion in the original Resident Evil video game! And its got director Juzo Itami in an acting role!)

For some reason Kandagawa Pervert Wars has been stuck in my head as a potential/likely Arrow release for a while now (but it's probably just wishful thinking due to having never been able to find fansubs for it...).

I watched the film and extras over the weekend and this is a very thorough, well-presented release. I never actually saw Pulse back when J-horror was 'all the rage' (mostly via second-hand Tartan DVDs), so went into this one blind and very much enjoyed it (especially the actual ghost scenes, the score, the film stock). Kurosawa's interview was very interesting, and I even found the chat with Wingard and Barrett touched on some interesting themes I hadn't previously considered.

Fingers crossed we get more J-horror from Arrow eventually. I'd especially love Ju-on: The Grudge, or maybe even Ringu, though both of those are obviously franchise properties and might be difficult to acquire. In which case, perhaps Kurosawa's Cure would be more appropriate?

Did Pulse ever get a UK DVD release back in the day? I remember importing the US Magnolia Pictures DVD of the film back in early 2006 (along with the HvE editions of Cure, Seance and Charisma), but it seemed that Kiyoshi Kurosawa sort of got overlooked for a while, even by Tartan Video (I think Tartan Video belatedly released Doppleganger, but only in the US during their brief attempt to expand into that market). That was what made the Masters of Cinema release of Tokyo Sonata feel like such a big deal a few years after that as the first UK release of any of his films.

Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Aug 14, 2017 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Did the Tartan Video edition of Bright Future have the 50 minute making of documentary "Ambivalent Future" on it?

Not according to dvdcompare, which says the R2 Tartan DVD only had a text essay as an extra. The documentary is listed as an extra on several other releases, though with a 70-minute running time rather than a 50-minute version.

Has anyone in the US received this? I've had it on pre-order at Amazon for months and they're showing it as "usually ships within 1 to 2 months" and my order says "Arriving Jul 26 - Aug 23." Low stock? Delayed release? What's up?

Still waiting on this from Amazon and now they estimate October 1 as the delivery date. I got a crazy good pre-order price, so I don't want to cancel, but boy, is this frustrating.

Has anyone in the US received this? I've had it on pre-order at Amazon for months and they're showing it as "usually ships within 1 to 2 months" and my order says "Arriving Jul 26 - Aug 23." Low stock? Delayed release? What's up?

Still waiting on this from Amazon and now they estimate October 1 as the delivery date. I got a crazy good pre-order price, so I don't want to cancel, but boy, is this frustrating.

My order had this issue. Around July 12th I cancelled the order and reordered immediately. The price was around 10 Pounds and the reorder price was 12.5 so I lost about $4 US doing it this way. If you want to keep your price and get your order moving, you might have to contact Amazon's customer service.

If any of you have been awaiting the final resolution of my saga, you'll be pleased to know that it showed up on my doorstep on Monday, several hours before I got a shipping notification that said it would arrive on Tuesday. This whole transaction has seemed so cursed that I still cannot bring myself to remove the shrinkwrap and put the disc in the player lest I disappear like a shadow into the corner of the room.

It gives me hope to hear of everyone's tales of receiving their order of Pulse.Amazon's website showed Pulse as "In Stock" today, so I contacted them to find out if my order would now be fulfilled. I was told to cancel my current order and re-order it. I declined as there's no way I'm losing my $16 price. Fortunately, he was able to figure out how to process my order with the guaranteed price and added free one-day shipping, for my troubles. I'm still waitining for my email confirmation, though.